Disclaimer: Not mine, never has been and unfortunately never will be :(

Summary: Quinn makes a hard decision and thing begin to unravel.

A/N: Crap, chapter is crap. I'm warning you right now in advance. I just couldn't get this chapter to come out. It's been like squeezing water from a rock, but at least I wrote something.

On an important side note, I just want to note that the overall rating for this verse is NC-17, I do give chapters individual ratings just because I find it's a nice way for readers to get an idea for the type of chapter they're about to read, but the overall rating is NC-17 which means that this fic, and particularly the Nc-17 chapters are for Adults only. Now the wonderful thing with fanfic is that no one would even know your age unless you write it on your profile, and my reason for mentioning this is that it's been brought to my attention that some of my reviewers have their age mentioned on their profile and they are most definitely not adults yet. Please, you can get both myself, and other authors who write similar stories, into trouble by blatantly reading and reviewing our fics: rather just wait to read this sort of stuff until you are legally old enough in your country (or at least skip over the NC-17 rated chapters)

For everyone else, enjoy and comment when you're done!

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Quinn couldn't believe she was about to do this. Her hands were practically trembling as she walked up Rachels driveway.

She had been mulling things over for the last week. Making a decisions, changing her mind, going back to the original decision and then coming up with a whole new idea before repeating the pattern again. If she were really being honest with herself, Quinn had known what her decision would be days ago, she was merely delaying the inevitable.

Ringing the doorbell, a part of her prayed for Rachel not to be there, even though she had already texted to say she was coming over and Rachels car was in the driveway. The door was whisked open within seconds.

Rachel greeted her girlfriend with a kiss, as was their custom, not noticing the way Quinn barely returned it before ushering her inside and rattling on about a new band she had discovered.

Quinn followed Rachel up the stairs to her bedroom, having to make a conscious effort to steel her resolve and not change her mind as Rachel babbled on in a way Quinn had always found endearing.

In the room, Rachel went over to her laptop to pull up the song she had just been talking about so Quinn could hear it when the blond finally found her voice.

"Rachel, can that wait. We need to talk." Rachel glanced over her shoulder with a frown at being interrupted before turning fully around to face Quinn when she noticed her girlfriends serious expression.

"I think we need to take a break." Quinn said, her words coming out colder than she had intended from behind all the walls she had been constructing over the last few days so she could get through this conversation in one piece. Rachel felt her whole body freeze over at the words "I don't know how to date someone who is dating someone else, and I don't want to." Quinn continued.

"Yes we do. You pushing aside your feelings for Santana won't remove them and I won't ask you to repress them." Tears were threatening to spill at any moment for both of them, as Rachel heard the unyielding tone in Quinns voice that told her she would not be able to change her mind now.

"And if I refuse to date her?" Rachel tried another tactic.

"It doesn't change the fact that your feelings are still there. I have to deal with the fact that you like her and I need time to come to terms with that on my own first. In that time, you can also see if the attraction will come to anything. Only after that can I actually consider us dating again."

"Quinn, please?" Quinn just shook her head resignedly, getting up to go to the door.

Quinn made it all the way to her car before her tears started to fall.

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"Hey." Santana greeted Rachel by her locker the following morning, knowing straight away something was wrong.

"Hi." Rachel replied, putting her books into her locker and trying to act normal.

"Everything okay?"

"Mhmm," Rachel murmured as she closed her locker, "I'll see you later."

Santana caught her elbow as Rachel tried to slip into the crowds of students all heading to their first class of the day.

"Rachel?" Santana asked again in concern, trying to think what could be wrong. "are things okay between you and Quinn?"

"They're fine, we've just decided to take a break for a little while." Rachel replied reluctantly but figuring that Santana was going to find out anyway. Her nonchalance blatantly forced as she tried to slip away again, only to be stopped.

"Wait, what do you mean take a break?" Of all things Santana had considered happening, this was not one of them, and she could feel the guilt run through her, knowing she had caused this to happen.

"Look Santana," Rachel sighed heavily "I'm not really ready to discuss this with you, so can you please just let me get to class."

Santana stepped aside, swallowing the hurt she felt by Rachels rejection, even though she knew it was deserved.

It wasn't exactly unexpected when Rachel began turning down her and Brittanys invites to hang out, nor were the walls Quinn had suddenly constructed around herself, but it did make for a rather painful situation. Quinn Santana was less concerned about, because they had been through a phase of being friends at a distance, before and she trusted it would just take time for those walls to start lowering again and their friendship to return to how it was before. Rachel however was another matter.

Rachel wasn't out rightly blaming them or avoiding them even, they still saw her at school, and chatted amicably in the hallways but she stopped sitting with them at lunch, or hanging out with them after school and on the weekends, in the same way Quinn had.

The busyness of senior year made time speed by, with school work, cheerios, glee, college applications to deal with none of the girls seemed to realise how much time was going by.

"We need to sort things out with Rachel," Santana commented to Brittany more than a month later in the car on the way home from an extended cheerio practice.

"If I knew how to do that I would have done it by now." Brittany snapped, surprising Santana and revealing how much the situation was bothering her.

"Okay," Santana tried to placate her "I never said you did."

"Sorry," Brittany apologised tiredly "I just miss her, and Quinn, and I can't fix it because I'm not the one they're avoiding."

"So you're blaming me?" Santana demanded defensively, and she could feel the look Brittany sent her way even while she focused on the road. "I didn't plan for this to happen. Rachel could have always just said no and we could have all pretended I never said anything, besides, you pushed me to talk to her."

"Santana, can we not do this right now?" Brittany asked, knowing she should never have said anything but too worn out from practice to really care.

"You can't just tell me you blame me for losing our best friends and then not want to talk about it anymore." Santana replied hotly. "Especially when I wouldn't have said anything without your encouragement."

Rather conveniently, Santana pulled into Brittanys driveway at that moment and pointedly unlocked the central locking.

"Maybe not, but the final decision was yours." Brittany replied as she climbed out the car, shutting the door a little harder than necessary before Santana could respond.

The following morning Brittany arrived at Santana's house with coffee and carrot and nut muffins in hand, and ignoring the dirty look Santana's mother gave her, headed up to her girlfriends room.

"I come bearing gifts." She called sheepishly as she entered to see the door to the en suite slightly ajar and the sound of the shower running echoing out. The water stopped and a moment later Santana appeared, drying herself with a towel and not bothering about covering herself up, she glanced dismissively at the items Brittany was holding.

"Honey, I'm sorry about yesterday." Brittany apologised, putting the coffee and muffin on the dressing table before moving to wrap her arms around Santana, who reluctantly let her and even consented to a quick kiss.

"It wasn't fair to place all the blame on you, when there were other people also involved," Brittany could feel Santana relax slightly and after a moment they separated. "I was tired from practice and said things without thinking."

"I didn't have to get so defensive and you weren't completely wrong." Santana admitted as she began picking at the muffin

"Well neither were you, I did encourage you to talk to Rachel." Santana let the statement stand as she pulled her hair into a messy bun and wandered over to her cupboard to get her clothes for the day while Brittany politely ogled from across the room. "I guess I just sort of feel like the odd one out in this situation because it involves everyone but me and yet I'm still affected by it."

"Well if you want, you can be the one with feelings for Rachel, and the cause of her relationship falling apart and I'll be the one feeling left out." Santana joked.

"You're not the only reason," Brittany comforted "Rachel was the one who made the decision to tell Quinn."

"Mmm, I've been thinking I should talk to Rachel." Santana explained as she got changed "Just to let her know that I'm willing to be friends with her even if it's nothing more than that."

"I'm also worried about Quinn." Brittany added, and they had both noticed that Quinn had been behaving more recklessly than before, drinking more at parties, cutting class and the like.

"Me too," Santana replied, but they both knew their friendship wasn't really in the right place for them to call her out on it.

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AN: I admit I gave into readers suggestions in this chapter, which meant quite a bit of story line restructuring. I plan to do some lighter stuff soon, and some DD, just need to get past this bit first. I also need to know if anyone has any ideas fora possible reason Rachel would have to be pissed off enough at Brittany to shout and swear...I have this idea that should manage to be in character, but only if I can find a reason for it to work. I know it wasn't a particularly good chapter, but I'd still like to know what you thought of it, so review please and let me know!

The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.